Abstract

The curiosity and the interest for knowing what is beyond the human eye led to the birth of dermoscopy. Despite the fact that the wide use of dermoscopy is relatively recent, several documents that reflect different approaches to this technique can be found since the XVI century. These attempts represent not only a great progress to dermoscopy, but also allowed the development of other techniques such as capillaroscopy, currently used in the study of autoimmune diseases, trichoscopy, applied at the beginning for the early diagnosis of cretinism and afterwards used for several indications and, finally, colposcopy, useful for the study of cervix disorders in gynaecology. Ultimately, the optical properties of the epidermis and the development of magnification optical devices allowed to visualize skin lesions in vivo and are the cornerstones of the current dermoscopic technique.